Q: What is worse than BO?

A: Trying to mask it with tons of cologne!

So, I distinctly remember reading this article in Real Simple (magazine) a while ago, about gym etiquette. I remember being sort of put off by the article, because one of the things it talked about was what to do if someone has really bad BO. And I remember thinking, "Um, this is the gym. Aren't you supposed to smell?" I mean, if someone told me my sweat smelled too bad for the gym... C'mon...

But there's this guy at the gym. We call him "jerky guy." Not because he's a jerk. But, because he gets on the elliptical and sets the level so insanely high that he literally has to jerk his body with each stride. It's somewhere between comical an painful to watch.

But that's not the worst part.

Oh no.

The worst part is that he REEKS. But it's not BO -- it's some terribly horribly awful mix of cover up scents. I can't quite describe it properly: earthy, almost tobacco-ish (but not like cigarette smoke). But it's nauseating. And it's strong. (And for some reason I was blessed with an incredibly sensitive sense of smell. It's one of my gifts - being able to tell what Greg has been snacking on when he comes to bed.) I literally can smell him coming. When I'm on the elliptical, I'm usually engrossed in Newsweek.

On Monday, I smelled it. And then I looked up. And he had just gotten there, 2 machines down from me. And this was before he even started working out, when it gets worse. Oh, it's awful! And he's there like EVERY DAY. Now I dread when machines open up near me. I seriously think I'm going to have to start getting off the machine and moving because I just can't take it any more!

Today was treadmill day for me, so I specifically went for the bank of treadmills that has no ellipticals. I couldn't smell him from across the gym, but I'm sure it was just a matter of time before the scent wafted over.

Ok, enough for tonight. I really do need to go somewhere so I have something better to blog about.